Kick out rotten MPs and councillors

For the millions, not the millionaires, cartoon Alan Hardman (Click to enlarge)

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an electoral alliance that stands candidates against all cuts and privatisation. It involves the RMT transport workers' union, leading members of other trade unions including the PCS, NUT and POA, as well as the Socialist Party and other left and anti-cuts groups and individuals.

Paul Couchman, TUSC prospective parliamentary candidate for Spelthorne in Surrey and council candidate for Laleham and Shepperton Green, says why he is standing.

Spelthorne politically is a 'rotten' borough run almost entirely by Tories. They tend to go along with everything their Surrey county council colleagues decide, whether it is cuts to local fire stations or the building of the proposed 'eco park' household incinerator. Racked by scandal and totally ineffectual, they are just a mirror of the Con-Dem government.

There is no serious opposition from any of the other mainstream parties. Some of the most outspoken critics of the council are actually former Tories who jumped ship to set up as Independents. But these are still Conservatives at heart.

We have people queuing at food banks, workers' pay levels frozen and falling in real terms. Our public services are being decimated and all the mainstream parties agree on the need for cuts and austerity.

Shake

We need something completely different to shake the borough council (and the county) out of its complacency. Locally, TUSC is active in opposing the incinerator and the third runway for Heathrow.

We led the fight to defend local fire stations through our work in Save Our Services in Surrey.

We demand a public enquiry into the causes of the flooding in 2014 and for full public funding of the necessary flood prevention measures. And we support an enquiry into the death of Zane Gbangbola, a seven year old boy killed in the floods - possibly by the release of cyanide gas from an old landfill site.

It really is time for something completely different - honest, passionate councillors and workers' MPs on workers' wages!